Oh those crazy Berkeley kids. Scientists at the university have created a microscope for cellphones that takes your nice pocket sized mobile device and turns it into something the size of, oh I don’t know- a microscope! This 60x microscope has now been upgraded with fluorescent microscopy so it can see a parasite, bacteria, or cell–tagged with a specific fluorescent wavelength emitted by a special dye. So yeah, your phone can now pick up a virus, literally.

They say this can be built easily with off the shelf parts at a minimal cost compared to a normal microscope and that it’s considerably smaller than similarly powerful real microscopes. The prototype is ideal for third world countries without access to electricity or hospitals.

Although to me it still looks like the size of a regular microscope. Also it might be slightly counterproductive to use something to look for harmful viruses and bacteria with and then put the other end of it up to your nose and mouth to make a phone call. I would think you would want to keep your lab instruments and your personal gadgets separate and sterile but as you might have guessed, I’m not a doctor nor do I play one on TV (or the internet).